Bounty
by sky.guinalie
Summary: Jack was never in Torchwood, and he never met the Doctor. But instead of being a con-man, he's a bounty hunter. Jack's travelling through space to get to his target, and along the way, he picks up knowledge that suggests, just perhaps, that he was being played. That perhaps, Ianto Jones, his target, is in the right. Review!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N- Completely AU. It's a lot in the future, like Earth has contact and all that- kind of set in Star Trek time! This first chapter's rather short and sort of just a prologue, but bear with me. I hope you guys enjoy it! And my future slang for bounty hunter is lead chucker.**

"Half now, half later," said the man.

Jack nodded. "That's usually how things work, sir." He didn't mention that no, it actually wasn't, and that almost always, the payment was given after the job was done. He just smirked, accepting the credits given him. "Before I go, sir, I have one question."

"Yes, Mr. Harkness?" asked the man.

"Is it usual nowadays for the government - or at least for government officials like yourself - to use a lead chucker like me to, lets say, get the job done?" Jack asked, leaning against the desk.

"Quite usual," said the official, shifting nervously in his seat.

Jack nodded again. "Right. I'll be off now. Next time we meet, this-" he checked the note the man had given him. "This Jones guy'll be safe and sound in government hands." He turned and left, chuckling all the way out the door.

Jack went straight to his ship, not even stopping at a bar this time around. He had a job to do. But once he got everything straightened out and a course off-world set to autopilot, he found that he couldn't relax.

He paced back and forth, disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled his many guns, and checked the course seven times. Finally, he went into his bedroom on the ship and reviewed all of the information on the target.

The guy was named Ianto Jones. Jack couldn't help but think what a weird name it was, and wondered who in the galaxy would name their kid Ianto.

He was around 5' 11", and he was twenty-seven. A bit young to get mixed up in the whole business called 'being illegal', but whatever. Jack didn't really care. However, he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from the target's - Ianto's - face.

And that night, Jack couldn't sleep. Thoughts swirled around in his head. Thoughts wondering, in particular, what someone who looked as kind as Ianto Jones could have done to get himself wanted. To get himself hunted.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N- More of my intergalactic slang! Pennies: police officers. Derived from cops → coppers → pennies. Cuz, you know. Pennies are made of copper. Enjoy!

Ianto Jones checked his watch. It was time he should get going, just to be safe. Well, as safe as a fugitive can get.

He never really knew when everything started. It was just one minute he was a normal person leading a normal life, and the next he was finding out things he never, ever should have. He'd dug too deep without even noticing he'd been digging. And now he was wanted.

Great.

He left the lobby of the inn, dragging his rolly suitcase behind him, thinking over the events of the past few days. He'd trusted that the government would send someone after him within a day, so, as soon as he could, he left. He wondered what Rhiannon was doing, if she was okay. If she missed him.

Ianto sighed, stepping quickly along the docking bay to his ship. _The problem with inns these days_, he thought. _Is that the bays are too big. Every time I try to leave I get lost in all the hangars._ He finally found his ship (hangar 73), and was about to leave. Then he saw the slight problem preventing that.

Pennies, all around his ship.

Ianto panicked for a moment, frozen in the hangar doorway. Then he realized that, due to the matter over which he'd been convicted, the ordinary pennies wouldn't know about it. The government would send someone more qualified, someone special. That still left the question of the presence of the pennies, but Ianto ignored that for the time being, steeled himself, and walked over.

"Is there a problem?" asked one of the pennies. She was a short woman with magenta skin, probably from Proteus 7.

"Not really," Ianto said. "Except for, this is my ship and I'm going, so could you clear out?"

The penny winced. "Well, we're doing a routine check on all ships in the bay. It'll just take a minute to finish…" Her voice trailed off and she turned back to the ship.

Ianto stood about a meter away, watching. He didn't believe they knew who he was, but he needed to be sure that they weren't planting any tracking devices.

When they were done, they moved off, a little uniformed clump, to the next ship. Ianto sighed in relief. They hadn't altered anything, and they hadn't added any means of tracing him. He boarded his ship and started it up, realizing that he had to go as far away as possible, and set a course for the Butterfly Nebula.

Ianto maintained the course himself, not trusting the technology enough to let it steer for him. He knew that, in order to be safe, he needed to have control over everything. And that meant everything everything. Ianto didn't sleep at all that night, he just went round and round the bridge, checking each instrument periodically.

At around two in the morning, his vision was starting to fade out of focus and he knew he needed sleep, but he pushed the urge off and blinked the fuzziness away. He could do it tonight. And tomorrow, too, but eventually he was going to have to find a place to rest.

He supposed he could do that, banking on the probability that the pennies weren't notified yet. And until then, he'd just keep flying.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N- Yeah, this one is a bit comic. Sorry. But I'm still working up to that point in the story that everyone's waiting for!

"No! I don't want to buy it!" exclaimed Jack. It had been almost a week after getting the assignment, and he still hadn't found the target. Almost an all time low for him. And now these stupid aliens were trying to sell him some type of goddamn hairspray when he needed information.

The alien gestured towards the hairspray again and flashed a winning smile. If winning were cracked and full of missing teeth.

"This man," Jack said, holding up his picture. "Have you seen this man?"

It tried to press the hairspray into his hands.

"I'm not gonna buy your stupid aerosol hairspray or whatever, but I'll pay you," Jack said, begging for patience.

The alien stopped, perking up its five ears.

"For information," Jack continued. "On this guy here." He waved the picture again for a finishing touch.

It nodded, taking the picture and beckoning for Jack to follow it as it began to waddle off. It led the captain through alien suburbs, staying on the cracked but present cement. They stepped around piles of galactic trash and junk, littered here by some absent inhabitant of the planet.

Slowly, the oddly-shaped buildings got more and more frequent as they made their way into the heart of the city. More creatures passed them now. Almost none of them were native. Jack knew this because they were all from familiar planets.

Along with the increase in surrounding lifeforms, a strange smell filled the air. Not one you'd expect for a place this stuffed with tourists. You'd think it would smell like sweat, or greasy food, or burning rubber, but it actually smelled like an operating room. Sterile was the perfect word. And it unnerved Jack.

The alien brought him to a little shop and took him into the back room. It activated a computer system, tapping on the keys.

Soon, Jack realized it was hacking into the public CCTV footage. He laughed. "You're savvy with tech, so savvy that you just had to take a peek and show off. Now I'm getting lucky cause of it. Thanks."

The alien rolled its eyes, burbling to itself - or to Jack, he couldn't tell - as it pulled up the right part of the footage.

The film went rather smoothly, showing a regular day in the centroid city of the planet. In fact, if Jack hadn't been looking for one face in particular, there would have been nothing at all out of the ordinary in the tape.

The CCTV was taken from cameras in some sort of docking bay.

Jack watched very carefully as someone came in through a door. That someone came closer to the camera, and there he was. The target, Ianto Jones.

"Yep," Jack muttered to himself, dumping some credits into the alien's hands. "Where's he gone to now?" The question was quiet, almost posed to himself, but the alien extended something to him.

It was a little data chip.

"Thanks," said Jack, grinning. "You've been lovely. Now, I really must fly." He practically ran back to his ship, excitement flowing through him. He was finally back on track.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N- Sorry for the long wait, I'm an asshole. And more new spacey words: sublight- traveling below warp, or light, speed. Also referred to as first setting.

Ianto didn't know exactly which planet he landed on, in the end. He needed rest pretty badly, and when he realized that, instead of a docking bay, this planet had more of a junkyard freckled with parked ships, he knew he could stay there.

It wasn't a planet that he'd like to visit under normal circumstances, but it was a place to hide. From the looks of things, there wasn't much of a police force or any authority of any kind, which was just what he needed. He was still sort of in shock because of the quick change that took over his life, but he was adapting. He was pretty good at that.

Ianto decided to sleep in the ship, mostly because he didn't have enough energy to go elsewhere and a bit because anywhere there was to sleep on this planet wouldn't be nice.

He went to his room and curled up under the blankets, not bothering to change his clothes. He was asleep in minutes.

On the other side of the junkyard, there stood a man named Gregor. Ianto had thought earlier that there wasn't authority here, and he was wrong. Gregor was the authority. He wasn't really like the government, the planet didn't have one anyways, or like the police - they didn't have that either - but he was certainly in charge. Anything that happened was reported straight to Gregor. And if anyone did anything frowned upon, well… that was brought up with Gregor, too.

And right now, Gregor was glaring at the little starship that had landed on his planet. He didn't know this ship, so something must be wrong. This guy clearly didn't know the rules. Gregor would have smirked wickedly, but a scar stretching the length of his face made it rather impossible.

Gregor strode forwards, towards the ship. Behind him, a bunch of his men. None of them were very bright, but they all had some muscle to lend, and that was what he needed. They surrounded the ship.

"Find the central power line and cut it off," Gregor commanded, and his men began peeking under the ship.

Jack was having a great time. The data chip had the identification of Jones's ship, and with that, Jack could trace its signal. This put him days ahead. He reminded himself to buy that alien a drink sometime.

"And… there we go," Jack murmured to himself. The ship showed up, a little blip on a planet not so far to the East. He could get there in a few days at sublight. He set a course to the signal and sat back with satisfaction, watching the blinking red light.

Then, the light disappeared. Jack leapt up.

"Central power out, sir," called one of the men.

The ship was dead.

"Brilliant," congratulated Gregor. "Now get the door open. Let's see who's ship it is, eh?"

A chorus of agreement shot up from the men, and they swarmed around the door, kicking and elbowing each other out of the way.

"How can you be gone?" Jack shouted at the screen, smacking it and hoping the blip would show up. It didn't. But, he still had his course plotted. There was no time to waste now, just in case something big was happening.

Jack threw his ship into warp speed, something he'd upgraded in after his last job. He'd get there, alright. Before anyone could touch _his_ target.

After nearly a quarter of an hour, the men still couldn't get the door open. Honestly, they'd spent most of the time beating each other up to do what the boss said first.

"Ugh, you idiots!" exclaimed Gregor. "Let me through."

The squabbling instantly ceased and the men parted nervously to let their boss through. They watched, clustering on either side of the door and held their breath as Gregor placed something on the door.

"Stand back," Gregor commanded.

"Why, sir?" asked a guy.

"Because the _bomb_ I just placed on the _door_ is about to _detonate_, genius!" Gregor stood several meters away, his men scrambling to get behind him.

A small explosion rocked the ship.

Inside, Ianto sat bolt upright. With the door to his ship blown away, he could hear gruff voices. He'd played through this occasion so many times in his head since running away. He quietly opened the drawer next to his bed and pulled out a gun. Checking that everything was working and ready, Ianto realized he'd never hurt someone like this before. He wondered if he could really do it.

In the control room, Gregor sighed exasperatedly as his men pushed all the buttons and flipped all the switches. "Find the pilot, got it?"

A resounding, "Yes, boss!"

Ianto felt his whole body seize up as he heard the footsteps outside the door.

It burst open.

"There you are," muttered Gregor.

Ianto felt very very small as the muscular men clustered in the doorway. He held the gun at arm's length. "Don't come any closer," he heard himself say.

One of the men leaned closer to Gregor. "Sedative, boss?" He held up the shot.

Another stepped in. "Or a good clonk on the head, sir?" He hefted a cricket bat.

"I don't care, just do it!" exclaimed Gregor, a vein pulsing in his temple. He reminded himself to get new sidekicks.

The guy wiggled the bat in front of his fellow henchmen and got a bunch of encouraging sneers in return. The sedative was left forgotten on the floor.

"I'll kill you," Ianto said, holding the gun tighter.

"Right," Gregor said, laughing. "You'll kill us all with a handgun that you can't even hold straight."

Ianto gritted his teeth, flushing with embarrassment. He was determined not to look away from Gregor, to keep their eyes locked. To keep the gun pointed at the gangster's temple. Therefore, he didn't really notice the henchman behind him.

It was too late for Ianto to react when the cricket bat slammed into the back of his head.

Gregor watched with satisfaction as the little figure crumpled to the ground. The handgun clattered as it hit the floor. "Okay. Someone take him. We're getting out of here."

Jack haphazardly slammed his ship down and ran out. When he reached the ship that had been Jones's, he found the power cut. That was why the sensor had stopped picking it up. The door had been ripped away by some sort of explosives, and, when Jack checked, it was empty.

He bent down, picking up the little handgun. The kid had put up a fight. Good.

When Jack stepped outside the ship, he looked over the land with a sigh. He'd lost again. How long was it going to take to catch this guy? He was about to go back to his ship when he caught something. Figures on the horizon, going out of the junkyard and into the city.

That was where Ianto Jones was, Jack was sure of it. And that's where he would go.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N- Okay, at first I was just an asshole, now I'm an über-asshole, because I made you guys wait like 2 months! Sorry!**

When Ianto came around, the room was finally kind enough to swim into focus. He was in some sort of… there wasn't really a defined word for what the room was. "Cell" was a bit over the top, but to leave it at plainly "room" fell utterly short. There was an army cot in one corner and a table in the middle. That being said, the walls and door were metal and there was a sliding window in that door, just like in a prison.

He winced as the light, a blinding fluorescent, was switched on.

"Hey kid, you awake?" asked a gruff, low voice.

Ianto stood up carefully, trying to clear away the lingering bits of a headache. "Yes." Maybe, if he just created a whole made-up life for himself in what little time he had before the man started asking questions, he could leave.

The little window was open, but the man on the other side was standing out of the viewframe. He said, "Your ship was brought to the Winch."

Was Ianto supposed to know who - or what - that was? "Ah… Alright. Do you know when I could have it back?"

A low chuckle burst into the room, stomping through the window. "Once it's with the Winch, it's gone. He grinds ships up like stale biscuits." The man laughed even harder, and started to cough.

Ianto gritted his teeth. This wasn't funny. He needed that ship to stay safe. "Why am I here?"

"Your ship was new. You're new. This is initiation."

"When can I leave?"

Another chuckle.

Ianto kicked the door. "Don't laugh! Tell me what's going on!"

"Thing is, kiddo, you ain't leaving. You're in Gregor's place now, and everyone answers to him. Well, I should probably say everyone answers to me. Gregor Flitland, at your service."

"I-" Ianto began, but before he could even decide what he was going to argue, Gregor cut him off again.

"I've got sources, kid. And a little bird told me that you were worth some credits. A hell of a lot of credits that I could use to line my pockets with."

"You- you're-" Ianto stammered, feeling fear claw its way through his chest, its icy grip curling around his heart.

"No, not me," Gregor said, with a smile in his mocking, gleeful voice. "You. Your luck just ran out, Ianto Jones."

The little window slammed shut.

Ianto couldn't move. He felt his head reel; he didn't know what to do. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. His ship was gone, the door was locked. All his lies were dry and crumpled, somewhere on the floor, and if he were to find them again they'd be used up and blank and futile.

He sat on thebed and leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes and wishing there was something he could do.

Jack was getting nowhere. Whenever he asked anyone anything, all he got was a nasty, gap-toothed smile and a 'take it up with Gregor.' So. This "Gregor" was in charge, and if he wasn't the one who'd taken Jones, then he'd probably at least know where they'd brought the guy.

Jack walked up to a woman, cutting his usual flirting down to a minimum. "Hey."

"Aluu!" she cooed. A regular interspecies greeting.

"Terra?" asked Jack, fervently hoping she spoke English, which was the dominant Earth language.

She nodded. "Yup. I can speak Terra and a bit of Betelgeusian, if that matters." She flashed a winning smile.

"Cool," Jack said, raising an eyebrow. "Nice tail, by the way- sorry, I should probably- I'm Jack, Jack Harkness."

"My title's Iota Seven," she said with a flick of her tail.

Jack smiled, but it was quick and somewhat forced. "I'd love to chat, Sev, maybe even kick back for a drink, but I'm on a schedule. Do you know who Gregor is and how I can find him?"

"He's in charge. It's scary, how much he knows and how fast he gets to the problem," Iota said, lowering her voice. "A gun goes off one moment, Gregor's here the next. And he's never alone, either. He has a little gang that follows him around, and-"

"What was that?" Jack asked quietly, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket. "'A gun goes off one moment' …" He drew out his pistol. "Good doing business with you, Sev. Now, if you don't want a face to face confrontation with Gregor, you should probably skeedaddle."

Iota's eyes widened, and she hurriedly said goodbye and disappeared into a nearby bar.

Jack looked up into the darkening sky and fired one shot. Hey there, Gregor. Two shots. Here I am. Three. Come and get me.


End file.
